Dan Holdsworth, ”Blackout”

Dan Holdsworth
Dan Holdsworth, Blackout 09, 2010, image: Dan Holdsworth

Dan Holdsworth’s twist on landscape photography is introduced to Sweden, a country well-versed in climatic extremes. Nordin, a niche gallery established in 2007, accentuates a cluster of Holdsworth’s prints of enormous proportions, depositing one particular set apart from the others—back-lit in a smaller, adjacent room most likely meant for video installations. Claiming that inspiration for this series came from New York’s power failures of the 1960s, Holdsworth in ”Blackout” reminds the viewer that certain flavors of panic and unrest are cyclical—one keen emotion present yesterday, perhaps back again today. The artist’s projects handily prove that he has mastered the use of light, texture and technique, and that these skills can be harnassed for elusive and mysterious purposes. His c-type prints, typically displayed as a series, range from investigations of California, power plants, and abandoned motorways to meditations on synthetic sources of vibrance—known more simply by environmentalists as light pollution.

This series of ghostly photographs concentrates on the otherwordly atmospheres of Iceland. From one image to another, there are slight changes in perspective, whether found in the background or the curvature of the glacial mountain peaks themselves. By the nature of subverting each image into its opposite, these pictures seem all the more powerful, managing to thrive outside the mundane. It was difficult to convince myself that these images, whether positive or negative, originated from this world at all. Almost as if one is viewing an intimate portrait, sentiments of fondness and awe can also be extracted from Holdsworth’s removed perspective. These abstractions aptly inspire a sense of solitary exploration, even if leaving one’s comfortable coordinates cause fatigue. Such jagged terrains, both of one’s external milieu and of one’s interior landscape, require closer examination. What’s wrong could easily be otherwise.

Humanity has a curious history of being intrigued and derailed by notions of both the sublime and supernatural. Examples can be found in tales of witchcraft, elusive phantasms (both real and imagined), stringent rituals of Victorianism and de Sade’s convoluted theories of sensuality and pleasure. Holdsworth creates a series of ghostly alterations which fuse past notions of photography as documentation of the mystical and forward-thinking approaches to photography as a scientific, experimental playground where technology is a tool to accentuate. Once prosaic landscapes become ineffable sequences; the British artist transforms the predictable into the alien and paralytic with calculated expertise. Holdsworth embraces contrast, renegotiating positions taken for granted: haze becomes ether, absence becomes presence, darkness becomes light.To see the review in context, click here.

Edgar Cleijne & Ellen Gallagher, “Better Dimension”

Edgar Cleijne & Ellen Gallagher
Installation view. Image: Jacquelyn Davis.

Presenting collaborations between Dutch artist Edgar Cleijne and US artist and filmmaker Ellen Gallagher, ‘Better Dimension’ at Stockholm’s Bonniers Konsthall includes experimental works that provide socio-political commentary on US history and race relations from a cosmic, obscure distance. More »

Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA1)

Aslan Gaisumov
Aslan Gaisumov, People of No Consequence, 2016.

For the first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, curator Katarina Gregos has chosen to view Latvia as ‘the center of the world,’ where other regions and nationalities become satellites. This is refreshing, for the Baltics have previously been considered to have a peripheral status. More »

Johannes Heldén, “The Exploding Book”

Johannes Heldén
Johannes Heldén, Clouds, 2017.

As one enters the space temporarily designated for Swedish artist and poet Johannes Heldén’s The Exploding Book at Konstakademin’s in Stockholm, one detects that Heldén is receptive to nuance; each creative gesture confirms his dedication to both text and image, expressed with equitable consideration. More »

Malin Gabriella Nordin, “Floating from Within”

Malin Gabriella Nordin, Veil of Dreams, 2017. Image: Gallery Steinsland Berliner.

Stockholm-based artist Malin Gabriella Nordin is one of many Swedish women artists who resort to the basics – or perhaps the old ways, meaning they’re not particularly interested in the digital. More »

“Survival Kit 9”

Andris Eglītis, Laboratory of Poetic Research, 2017. Image: Jacquelyn Davis.

The 9th edition of Survival Kit is orchestrated by a small team of Baltic and Scandinavian curators: Jonatan Habib Engqvist, Solvita Krese and Inga Lāce. All possess a background in organizing independently and within the confines of institutions, which may be their strong point—their fluidity. More »

The 9th Momentum Biennial

Jenna Sutela, Sporulating Paragraph, 2017. Image: Momentum 9.

Momentum 9, taking place in the industrial town of Moss, Norway, is being curated by Ulrika Flink, Ilari Laamanen, Jacob Lillemose, Gunhild Moe, and Jón B.K. Ransu, who together represent the Scandinavian region. With this biennial’s focus on ‘alienation’, the curators joined forces to determine how alien processes and entities are infused in our lives through technological, ecological and social transformations. More »

Klas Eriksson, “Vet din mamma var du e?”

Klas Eriksson
Klas Eriksson, Evidence of Patchwork, 2017. Image: Göteborgs Konsthall.

Swedish artist Klas Eriksson has developed a practice rooted in examining subcultures via works in public spaces and spontaneous performances. With an interest in how power flows and how crowds function, the artist attempts to unpack sociopolitical dynamics using playful tactics. More »

Lovisa Ringborg, “Night Remains”

Lovisa Ringborg
Lovisa Ringborg, Fountain, 2017. Image: Cecilia Hillström Gallery.

In Lovisa Ringborg’s second exhibition at this gallery, the artist upholds the argument that displaying a set of harmonious works can be more potent than a plethora of free-floating entities. More »

Przemek Pyszczek, “1989”

Przemek Pyszczek
Przemek Pyszczek, Public Relief No 6, 2016. Image: Gallery Belenius.

Polish-born, Canadian-raised, Berlin-based artist Przemek Pyszczek displays new works which are primarily sculptural and mixed media, with stints into collage. More »